Treasury Wine's Bob Spooner heads off for another Great Western adventure

By Colin Kruger

February 18, 2016 — 7.45pm

It seems like such a long time ago now, but it has been barely 12 months since Treasury Wine boss Michael Clarke called in his old UK chum from Premier Foods, Bob Spooner.

His job was to rip tens of millions of dollars in costs out of its supply chain – just like he did with Premier's bread business while Clarke was in charge.

Champagne stored beneath Seppelt's Great Western Winery in central Victoria.

Optimising the supply chain at the wine business is just like slicing bread really, as Spooner showed in October when he announced the closure and sale of the 150-year-old Great Western Winery in Victoria in a press release titled: TWE Supply Chain Optimisation Continues in Australia and New Zealand.

"The size and location of the Great Western Winery means it is both under-utilised and increasingly non-viable as a production facility," Spooner explained in the release.

Advertisement

Illustration: John Shakespeare.

"So we are ceasing operations and moving production into other wineries in Treasury's Australian wine production network, in order to reduce costs and remove unnecessary complexity."

The "complexity" includes historic cellars tunnelled out by gold diggers in the 1860s.

And the news got worse on Thursday. Spooner will not be at Great Western when last drinks are served at its cellar door in June this year.

Clarke used Treasury Wine's half year results on Thursday to announce that Spooner is being promoted to head its US operations. He will now be based out in the boondocks in Napa Valley.

No doubt, he will be greatly missed by Treasury's local vintners.

Zillous response

There are many reasons why James Packer might be retreating from the $US300 million investment he made in US real estate player Zillow back in 2013.

But there is one that you won't be reading about in the Rupert Murdoch press, which broke the news that Packer has now slashed his initial 9.4 per cent stake to 2.3 per cent.

It all must have looked so good in 2013, as Packer attempted a replay of the fortune he made with Seek. Never mind Zillow's legal spat with local rival Move, over its poaching of an executive.

The legal battle has continued to chew up Zillow's cash, as its chief executive, Spencer Rascoff, reported last week. A net loss of $US25.7 million was weighed down by $US8.1 million worth of legal costs relating to its litigation with the News Corp subsidiary.

And when asked when it all will end, Rascoff was happy to tell analysts who they should be asking.

"You'd have to ask Rupert Murdoch that question," Rascoff said.

"We're focused on innovating; News Corp. is focused on litigating. Unfortunately you see this all too often in business, where companies that lose on the business battlefield resort to the courtroom out of desperation ... It's vindictive, it's baseless."

CBD is sure that Zillow's major shareholders, including Packer, were delighted to see their CEO taking the fight to a US billionaire who owns most of the gossip rags in this country.

OverCooked

With the breathless excitement of a freshly-minted lottery winner, Tatts Group has trumpeted its first half results in a media release to make Clive Palmer proud.

Online performance in lotteries and wagering was "nothing short of outstanding" while chief executive Robbie Cooke labelled everything – from recent jackpot runs to online audience size and the performance of British pokies subsidiary Talarius – as "exceptional."

Lost among the adjectives and bluster of Thursday's release was the fact wagering revenue was down almost 4 per cent, with Merrill Lynch labelling it a poor result given the recent rebrand.Cooke hasn't just rolled out the florid language for Tatts results.

This month he wrote an open letter to Federal MPs claiming the government is being "duped" by foreign bookmakers who "are looking for new territories to plunder" in their push to have online live betting legalised.